Politically Motivated Charges Against Ethiopian Opposition Leader : Arrest Came After Hearing in European Parliament

Three months after Ethiopian security forces arrested opposition leader Dr. Merera Gudina upon his return to Ethiopia, following his participation in a hearing at the European parliament about the crisis in his home country, prosecutors on Thursday charged the prominent 60-year-old politician with rendering support to terrorism and attempting to “disrupt constitutional order.” Ethiopian marathon runner Feyisa Lelisa and the head of the banned opposition group Ginbot 7, Dr. Berhanu Nega, had also participated in the hearing that had been hosted by Member of the European Parliament Ana Gomes, and which was to inform delegates about the protests that have swept through Ethiopia since November 2015. Hundreds of people have been killed and tens of thousands detained since these protests began. Merera is now at Maekelawi, a prison where mistreatment and torture are commonplace.

Merera is the chair of the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), a legally registered political opposition party. He joins many other senior OFC leaders facing terrorism charges over the last 18 months. Among those presently standing trial is OFC deputy chairman Bekele Gerba. Prosecutors included as evidence of his crimes a video of Bekele at an August 2016 conference in Washington, DC, where he spoke of the importance of nonviolence and commitment to the electoral process. Like Merera, he has been a moderate voice of dissent in a highly polarized political landscape.

Merera and Bekele join a long list of opposition politicians, journalists, and protesters charged under the 2009 anti-terrorism law, regularly used to stifle critical views of governance in Ethiopia. Acquittals are rare, credible evidence is often not presented, and trials are marred by numerous due process concerns.

Dr. Merera Gudina briefing the European
 parliament about the crisis
in Ethiopia on November 9, 2016.

During the state of emergency – called by the government in October 2016 in response to the crisis and to crush the growing protests – the Ethiopian government publicly committed to undertake “deep reform” and engage in dialogue with opposition parties to address grievances. Instead of taking actions that would demonstrate genuine resolve to address long-term grievances, the government again used politically motivated charges to further crack down on opposition parties, reinforcing a message that it will not tolerate peaceful dissent. This raises serious questions regarding the government’s commitment to “deep reform” and dialogue with the opposition. Instead of responding to criticism with yet more repression, the Ethiopian government should release opposition politicians jailed for exercising their basic rights,

EU parliament writes to Ethiopian president over detained Oromo leader

The European Parliament (EP) has officially written to the Ethiopian government seeking clarification on the arrest of an opposition leader, Dr. Merera Gudina.

The EP President, Martin Schulz, in a letter to President Mulatu Teshome said they were disturbed about the arrest of the Chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC). The EP also reiterated its call for the charges against Gudina to be made known.

‘‘It appears that Dr Gudina was arrested by Ethiopian authorities upon his return from a short stay in Brussels in early November, during which he also met with Members of the European Parliament,’‘ the letter read."I would like to remind you, that the European Parliament is a House of democracy, where different voices can be heard, from foreign governments as well as representatives of opposition groups."

The letter stated that the Ethiopian ambassador in Brussels had said that Gudina’s detention was connected with contacts he had with individuals Addis Ababa deemed as ‘terrorists.’ It added that it was ‘rather unfortunate that his arrest is linked to meetings he had with the European parliament.

‘‘I would like to remind you, that the European Parliament is a House of democracy, where different voices can be heard, from foreign governments as well as representatives of opposition groups,’‘ the letter added.

Late last month, Ethiopian security forces arrested the academician who is the chairman of the OFC, shortly after his arrival in the capital Addis Ababa.

Prof. Merera was returning from Brussels where – together with other Ethiopian activists and the

PROSECUTORS PRESENT CLIPS OF INTERVIEW AND A PUBLIC SPEECH AS EVIDENCE OF TERRORISM CHARGES AGAINST BEKELE GERBA

After several delays and more than a year in detention, prosecutors have today presented two video clips as evidence against Bekele Gerba, first secretary general of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), who is facing terrorism charges in the file name under Gurmesa Ayano.

Bekele Gerba was charged in April 2016 along with 21 co-defendants including Dejene Fita Geleta, secretary general of OFC with various articles of Ethiopia’s much criticized Anti-Terrorism Proclamation (ATP).

The charges include, but not limited to, alleged membership of the banned Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), public incitement, encouraging violence, as well as causing the death of innocent civilians and property destructions in cities such as Ambo and Adama, 120km west and 100km east of Addis Abeba during the recent Oromo protests in Ethiopia.

In the past prosecutors have presented evidences largely marked by several inconsistencies, including oral testimonials, against all the defendants, but have until today kept postponing that of Bekele Gerba’s. However, no individual has come forth to testify against Bekele, which led prosecutors to present the two video clips to the 4thcriminal bench of the federal high court.

One of the two clips presented as evidence is Bekele Gerba’s acclaimed speech as a keynote speaker during the annual conference organized by Oromo Studies Association (OSA) in August 2015. In it, after highlighting the plight of the Oromo, the largest ethnic group who are the basses of his opposition party, OFC, Bekele spoke at large, and pleaded passionately, about the need for nonviolent struggle. It now stands as evidence against him on charges that include ‘inciting violence.’  Bekele spoke at OSA’s event just five months after he was released from jail after serving more than four years for yet another terrorism-related charges. Prosecutors argued the speech was ‘inciting’ in its content. However, when asked by the defense lawyers to explain what OSA stands for, one prosecutor simply answered “no.”

The second evidence presented this morning was Bekele Gerba’s interview with ESAT, a foreign-based radio and television station. The interview was given in Dec. 2015, during the peak of the #OromoProtests that began in Nov. 2015 and lasted for almost a year. Prosecutors claimed the interview was related to the anti-government protests that gripped almost the entire parts of the Oromia regional state, the largest regional states in a federated Ethiopia.

The court adjourned the next hearing on Monday, Feb. 20th, during which prosecutors said they will present a third video clip of an interview Bekele gave to OMN, another foreign-based television station with a large viewership constituency among the Oromos in Ethiopia.

Political unrest simmering in Ethiopia

Protests were initially triggered by anger over a development scheme for the capital Addis Ababa that demonstrators said would force farmers off their land

Four months after declaring a state of emergency in a crackdown on protests, Ethiopia's government claims the country has returned to normal. Critics says the emergency decree remains an instrument of repression.

This coming April marks three years since protests broke out in Ethiopia. They were triggered by students in Ambo town, some 120 kilometers (74 miles) west of the capital Addis Ababa. The students were protesting against a controversial government plan dubbed "Addis Ababa and Oromia Special Zone Integrated Master Plan”.

The Ethiopian government maintained that the purpose of the plan was to amalgamate eight towns in Oromia Special Zone with Addis Ababa. The scheme would promote development.

However, residents in the eight towns were resentful of a plan they said had been devised behind closed doors. They were also worried that the plan, under the guise of development, would deprive farmers of their land, and have an unfavorable impact on local language and culture.

The protests which started in Ambo then spread to other towns in Oromia Regional State. On January 12, 2016, the Oromo People's Democratic Organization (OPDO), which is the local ally in the country's ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), revoked the plan.

But although the OPDO nominally represents regionally interests, the real power in the EPRDF is in the hands of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). 

This sense of underrepresentation helped drive the protests in Oromia Regional State, which soon reached Amhara Regional State.

The response by the security forces to these protests, which had a strong following among young Ethiopians, was harsh. Hundreds were killed, thousands were injured, hundreds 'disappeared' and others went into exile.   

But the protests conituned despite this lethal crackdown. In October 2016, the government responded by declaring a state of emergency for six months. .

Political crisis

Negeri Lencho, the minister who heads the government's communications office, told DW that the government had announced the state of emergency "not because it wanted to do it, rather it was forced to do it” because of the political crisis.

The administration of Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn claims that the state of emergency has already brought peace back to the country. Critics could therefore agrue that it would be possible for the government to lift the decree even before the six months have expired. However, Lencho says that no timeframe has been declared so far either for the repeal or for the extension of the decree.

Opposition figures and members of the public DW spoke to dispute the claim that the state of emergency has restored peace to Ethiopia. The protests and the gunfire may have ceased, but the arbitrary arrests and human right violations continue.

One Ambo resident, who asked to remain anonymous as he took part in the protests, said that the state of emergency had "unsettled the public's inner repose".

Repression was still in place, he said, despite the government "falsely" claiming that life was returning to normal.   

"You cannot go out after curfew. You cannot stand anywhere with a few people. People are filled with fear. They fear the Command Post." The Command Post is the government body charged with implementing the state of emergency.  

The town of Sabata, located 20 kilometers southwest of Addis Ababa, was part of the "Master Plan." One local resident said calm appears to have been restored to the town which was heavily affected by the protests, However the arrests and repression under the state of emergency continue, he said. "For example, there are youths who got arrested without a warrant and have been in prison for over three months on the charge that they have listened to music,” he told Deutsche Welle. "The state of emergency is being used by the state to take revenge against youth," he said.

Mulatu Gemechu, deputy chairperson of the oppostion Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), said a de facto state of emergency had been in force in Oromia fo some time, but by making it public the government had acquired a legal shield for further acts of repression. Gemechu added that the country can become peaceful only when the state security forces with their firearms keep their distance from ordinary citizens and stop arresting people.

"If government claims peace is returning because of soldiers' presence, then it isn't peace,” Gemechu told DW.

Thousands of people were arrested following the declaration of the state of emergency. Although the Ethiopian parliament set up an inquiry board to investigate human right violations in the wake of the state of emergency, it has yet to submit its first report. Lencho says he has no knowledge of any such report.

Uncertainty over number of arrests 

Government and opposition parties differ over the number of people who have been detained during the state of emergency. The government says 20,000 people have been arrested in Oromia, but Gemechu puts the figure closer to 70,000.

The government has said it will release more than 22,000 people. More than 11,000 were set free last Friday (03.02.2017)  

Lammaa Magarsaa: A sweet-talking lackey or a genuine man of the people?

Street protests have subsided in Ethiopia’s restive Oromia state following the sweeping state of emergency declared in October. But a tense insecurity reigns beneath the semblance of calm. No wonder, the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has done little to nothing to address popular discontents that rocked the country for more than a year.

In undated but widely shared Facebook video, Lammaa Magarsaa, the President of Oromia Regional State, makes an impassioned and surprising appeal to Oromo nationalism. He calls for economic revolution in Oromia and for strengthening of Oromo unity — “with new and modern thinking.” He urges the youth to remain engaged in the country’s affairs and to get organized. He received the most sustained applause when he in a clearly Gorbachevisn style mocked the hollow rhetoric of his party: Good governance,  rent-seeking, narrow nationalism, and chauvinism.

Lammaa was appointed a president in October 2016 following a reshuffle that’s meant to calm growing tensions in the state of Oromia.

On the surface, Lammaa’s (curious) comments sound lucid and even authoritative. But it is also riddled by hypocrisies. For starters, tens of thousands of Oromo activists, leaders, and artists, who have been swept up during the year-long crackdown on peaceful protesters, remain incarcerated. Some 30,000 who have been released to date were subjected to torture and Chinese-style mass indoctrination. Given this dynamic, and considering the fact that the vast majority of those who have been incarcerated are youthful, Lammaa lacks the moral authority to lecture anyone on the need for Oromo unity or to tell the youth to get organized. It is a shame that nearly the entire leadership of the only Oromo legal opposition party is in jail. How would one even get organized if the slightest form of dissent and attempt to get organized is not tolerated and peaceful protests are deemed acts of terrorism?

It is understandable if Lammaa’s idea of getting organized and unity entails joining the Oromo associates in EPRDF, the Oromo Peoples’ Democratic Organization (OPDO). Thousands had done so at the urging of EPRDF honcho Abbadula Gammada, who led the Oromia state as president from 2006 to 2010. As a consequence, the Oromo make up four out of seven members of the ruling party. However, this did not eclipse the continuing Tigrean domination of the country, which has stoked the protests. Hence, Lamma’s vague call for unity splashed with nationalistic rhetoric flies in the face of facts and rings hollow for the disaffected Oromo youth.

Addis Ababa’s urbanization plan, which served as the immediate trigger for the protests in November 2015, continues, albeit under another name — the so-called industrial zones. Oromia’s constitutionally guaranteed special interest over Addis Ababa remains unrealized. In fact, Oromia is still under military rule. Security forces in full military uniform roam around cities, towns, and villages across Oromia detaining people, expropriating private property, and murdering anyone who showed any sign of resistance to the official rhetoric. More than 1,000 people, including children and the elderly, were killed in 2016. Yet, not a single security officer or government official have been held accountable. EPRDF is still pushing the euphemism of good governance as the cause of the popular uprising in order to avoid tackling its legitimacy crisis. Lammaa may have been allowed to speak freely but he lacks the power and authority to even exercise his own constitutional rights as a leader of a supposedly autonomous state.

His comments make one thing clear, though: The rift within the loose EPRDF coalition continues to deepen. OPDO’s one-time influential old guard — Abbadula Gamada, Kuma Demeksa, Girma Biru, Diriba Kuma, etc — are out of sight and out of mind. The relatively younger cadres like Lammaa, who were not part of the armed struggle, maybe opportunistic but their attempt to garner nationalist credentials is palpable. And the dominant Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) needs Lammaa and the new faces of OPDO to survive and cling to power. This is what explains Lammaa’s overindulgent lecture on nationalism, unity, and economic revolution. He is allowed to speak in those terms (terms that would have automatically landed any other Oromo in jail) for a reason. His Tigrean handlers want him to tap into and contain the rising wave of Oromo nationalism. He vowed to make history but lacking neither the will nor the raw power to challenge the status quo, his soaring nationalist rhetoric may amount to nothing more than the scratching at the power imbalance within the ruling party without actually changing anything.

Long seen as TPLF’s puppets, the OPDO is clearly struggling for popular legitimacy, which it had clearly lost following last year’s brutal crackdown on protests and the Tigrean military’s takeover of the state it purports to govern autonomously. So the branding of Lammaa as a man of the people (who understands and speaks to the depth of public grievances) appears to be part of a public relations offensive aimed at regaining some of that lost ground. The idea is not to introduce genuine reforms to end the marginalization of the Oromo, be it at the state or federal levels, but to win back the people’s hearts and minds by riding the high horse of Oromo nationalism. However, without ending the Tigrean domination of the country, no rhetoric by the OPDO, however, lofty and spiced up by populist rhetoric, will do the trick.

Never Again? Inside Ethiopia's "retraining" programme for thousands of detained protesters

Detainees rounded up in the state of emergency were treated to a six-part course that included units in "Constitutional Democracy", "Colour Revolutions" and "Ethiopian Renaissance" 
Looking drained last month, thousands of Ethiopian detainees swore on their release from prison to “Never Again” protest against the government. Or at least that’s what was written on their t-shirts in the well-choreographed scenes shown by the state broadcaster.
On 21 December, this group of mostly young men was departing Tolay, a military camp turned detention centre in south-western Ethiopia. They had been incarcerated for over a month undergoing what the government refers to as a rehabilitation programme.

Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn attended the ceremony that marked their release. In his speech, he reminded the former detainees that they have a “constitutionally enshrined right” to express dissent, but warned that if they resort to violence, they will “pay a price”. For many observers, there was a cruel irony to seeing a government educating people about their right to protest having imprisoned thousands over the past few months for exercising it.
Until a year or so ago, Ethiopia had been enjoying strong economic growth and relative stability in a shaky region for a decade. But in November 2015, anti-government protests began to pose a threat to the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition, which has been in power since 1991.

Initially triggered by opposition to a plan to expand Addis Ababa into their lands, members of the Oromo, the largest ethnic group in the country, organised widespread protests to demand economic and political equality. They were later joined by Ethiopia’s second largest sub-nation, the Amhara, who also feel disenfranchised. Together, these two groups make up more than two thirds of the country’s population.
Protests and the state’s response to them escalated, and by September 2016, human rights groups were estimating that over 600 people had been killed by security forces. In October, the government declared a state of emergency that allowed authorities to hold suspects without due process. About 24,000 people were detained, often without charge, and sent to camps for “training”.
Rehabilitation
One of those rounded up was university lecturer and blogger Seyoum Teshome. A week before the state of emergency was imposed, Seyoum had spoken critically about the government to the German public broadcaster Deutche Welle. “Exactly 12 hours after that interview, security forces knocked on my door,” he says.

Seyoum claims that he was accused of possessing illegal pamphlets, but that the police found nothing. Nevertheless, he was sent to Tolay where he spent the next 56 days for allegedly breaching the state of emergency, even though he says he was already detained at the time.
Seyoum says that the conditions in the camp were poor and the treatment harsh. He alleges that he endured physical abuse and that he saw many other internees being harmed. “Fear was supreme,” says the lecturer, but “fused with hope”.
These sentiments are echoed by Befeqadu Hailu, a writer and blogger with the Zone9 collective, who spent over a month in another camp in the Oromiya region. According to him, the cells were packed to several times their capacity. He says that detainees had to dig holes in the field for toilets and that they had to endure conditions of extreme heat, lack of drinking water and limited exercise. “It was ugly,” he says, but says the most difficult aspect was “the uncertainty about what would happen to us”.
According to Seyoum, security forces spent the first few weeks trying to identify the prime troublemakers so they could face the courts. The government has said that 2,500 people detained in the state of emergency nationwide are to face trial, while 10,000 were marked for training and have since been released.
Seyoum says that those detainees were treated to a six-part course run by military and police officials. This involved being instructed in topics such as “Ethiopian History”, “Constitutional Democracy”, and “Colour Revolutions”. On this latter subject, the trainers tried to discredit the series of non-violent uprisings in former Soviet nations and the Balkans in the early-2000s, claiming they were engineered by Western interests.
Other units were named “Ethiopian Renaissance” and “Ethiopian Youth”, while one was simply titled “Never Again”. In these, Seyoum says that, amongst other things, international broadcasters such as the BBC and Voice of America were accused of promoting “an agenda contrary to Ethiopia’s developmental state model”.
According to Befeqadu, the programme wrongly assumed that the protesters were misled into demonstrating and ignorant of the subject matter. But government spokesperson Mohammed Seid insists their education was crucial.
He concedes that legitimate questions were raised during the protests, but claims that many “didn’t recognise there were differences between expressing dissent in a constitutional manner and violence”. “There were illegal demonstrations; there was hate speech,” he adds.
Uncertain future
Ethiopia’s ruling party has promised “deep reform” to address the widespread discontent in the country. But while it points to a cabinet reshuffle to show its sincerity, many complain that it is yet to address any of the underlying issues. The government continues to blame protests on external actors such as diaspora activists and neighbouring Eritrea. Meanwhile, the rationale behind the prisoner education programme further suggests an unwillingness to recognise the real concerns driving the demonstrations.
The EPRDF, which was founded by a former rebel group that came into power after overthrowing a military regime in 1991, has never fully abandoned its Marxist-Leninist roots. It often attributes opposition to a lack of awareness and sees education rather than dialogue and compromise as the solution.
The shortcomings of this approach are readily apparent by speaking to those who have come through the re-training. “Here is the thing though: I don’t feel any regret at all, because I haven’t done anything illegal or wrong,” says Seyoum. And, he adds, the political and economic questions raised by protesters are still yet to be addressed.